Cinnamon 1.2 Released

Version 1.2 of Cinnamon, the Gnome 3-based desktop, is now available for free download for use with Linux Mint 12, Ubuntu 11.10, Fedora 16, openSUSE 12.1, Arch Linux, and Gentoo. All APIs and the desktop itself are now fully stable, according to the blog announcement from lead developer Clement Lefebvre.

According to the announcement, Cinnamon 1.2 represents a step toward “reintroducing desktop effects and the ability for the user to define fancy animations or to turn effects off altogether.” This release features two new animation plugins: Fade, which changes the opacity of windows, and Scale, which changes their dimension.

Cinnamon 1.2 also includes support for the most common desktop layouts, a new configuration tool called “Cinnamon Settings” with additional configuration options, and an improved main menu.Additional changes were made under the hood. For example, Cinnamon now uses its own window manager (Muffin) and is no longer compatible with Gnome Shell themes. The overview was replaced by a desktop Scale plugin (similar to the old Compiz Scale), and more than 130 issues have been closed since the start of the project.

This month’s DVD lets you test the latest release from the popular Linux Mint project. Linux Mint 13 “Maya” is based on Ubuntu 12.04 “Precise Pangolin” and thus is compatible with the Ubuntu repositories.